


Not Dark Yet

by bluflamingo



Category: Stargate Atlantis, Stargate SG-1
Genre: Background Relationships, Captivity, Friendship, Gen, Rescue Missions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-13
Updated: 2013-06-13
Packaged: 2017-12-14 21:55:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/841806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluflamingo/pseuds/bluflamingo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When a rescue mission goes wrong, Cam struggles with his role in it and the challenges of being deputy civilian commander of Atlantis. Meanwhile, John and Cadman are more focused on the struggle to survive, and their fading hopes for rescue</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not Dark Yet

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ignemferam](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ignemferam/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Search and Rescue](https://archiveofourown.org/works/835769) by [ignemferam](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ignemferam/pseuds/ignemferam). 



_Two weeks ago_

"When I asked for the famed Colonel Sheppard, I never expected that request to be granted." On his throne, too large for the small room they'd been escorted to, the leader had exactly the same smug expression on his face that John remembered from countless superior officers who'd suddenly found a way to get rid of him. "At least, not with an offer to talk about meeting our requests."

"We like to mix it up," John said, swallowing down the memory of the argument he and Cam had gotten into over diplomacy versus storming the place with next to no knowledge of what they might be up against. Either his new posting as Woolsey's deputy was warping Cam's mind, or John's own memories of the man were warped.

Not the time.

"I want to see my people, and be sure that they're unharmed."

The man nodded to one of what John assumed were his attendants – three of them, which was simultaneously overkill and underkill, when John's team were ranged along the back wall – who opened an internal door and said something to whoever was out there.

A moment later, another attendant entered, trailed by Lorne's team. They were still in their uniforms, minus weapons, and upright, walking under their own power, though Lorne was limping slightly, and the left side of Cadman's face was swollen and bruised. Henderson and Fernandez at least looked healthy, which wasn't a huge surprise – Cadman tended to throw herself fists first into every fight, and Lorne always backed her up.

"Doc." John kept one eye on the team, one on the guy in charge, but heard Keller shift, her footsteps hushed on the sand floor. When she stepped into John's line of vision, Teyla was beside her, radiating menace even without her weapons.

"It's nothing," Cadman said softly when Keller touched her face.

"Pretty sure they cracked a bone," Lorne corrected.

"So, you see that they're well," the leader said, before Cadman and Lorne could fall into their usual injury-banter. "And now for your end of this bargain."

John raised his hand, intending to key his comm. under pretence of scratching his ear and give the signal for the backup team. He never got that far.

A small metal object rolled through the still open door, and before John could shout a warning, it stopped at his feet, made a sharp noise, and exploded. 

John threw his arm up to cover his eyes - _flashbang_ \- felt a hand on the back of his vest, pulling him, Ronon was behind him, but so was an attendant – He ducked sideways, eyes streaming - _Christ, that hurt, what the hell was that thing?_ \- heard voices, muffled like they were under-water, and the next hand on him gripped his arm tight, too tight, that wasn't friendly, that was –

Something pricked the side of his neck - _injection, drug, fuck -_

Everything went black.

_Now_

Cam knew, the moment Teyla stepped through the gate, that the news wasn't good. Her whole body seemed slumped with – it was defeat, he told himself, because her clothes were still clean, not covered in blood, and she wasn't calling for medical. 

Watching the rest of the search and rescue team file through behind her, Cam wondered when not finding John and Captain Cadman had started to be the good news. When 'finding them' had quietly become 'finding them dead,' for all that no-one said it, and no-one wanted to believe it.

Cam waited for the gate to close before making his way down to the gate-room proper, which meant Keller was there first, already checking for injuries. 

"Anything?" 

Major Teldy looked up, but before she could say anything, Ronon said, "Trail was cold. No-one's been there in months."

"Ronon is right." None of the defeat in Teyla's posture came through in her voice, though she kept her eyes on Ronon as she spoke. "Although it may be useful to send another team to search more closely in some of the abandoned buildings."

Teldy nodded when Cam glanced over – her team were heading up the S&R, but it was mostly in name, with Ronon, Teyla, and Lorne's team having most experience doing this in Pegasus, and therefore having the most input into the search. 

"It looked abandoned," Vega said, not entirely as though she was disagreeing with Teyla. "They were definitely there, but I think it was before they went to P3X 891. It wasn't their main base."

Teyla inclined her head. "Never-the-less, we may yet find something of use."

She'd said that about the last three planets as well, for all that none of them had offered any clue to where John and Cadman had been taken. And it was only two weeks – Cam had been with the Sodan for over a month before the SGC tracked him down.

They probably weren't being trained up for a kel-shak'lo ritual. For them, two weeks probably felt more like the length of time Cam had spent missing. 

"Woolsey's in with the leaders from Haptra," he said, before he could get too deep into that line of thought. "Let's debrief in an hour?"

"Sir," Teldy agreed, moving towards the locker rooms as soon as Cam nodded dismissal, her team following behind, Keller unsubtly sticking by Vega's side. 

Cam caught Teyla's eye, checking on her with a raised eyebrow that got him a small smile in return. 

He wasn't particularly surprised when Ronon didn't make the small turn necessary to look at him. There was no point pushing – Cam had figured that one out early on, and the current situation just made the point all over again. 

"Lorne's in his office, his team got back this morning." Cam turned slightly, saying the words to Teyla, instead of to Ronon like he wanted. "He'll want to see you."

*

John wakes up to cold and damp and, after a moment, familiar. Cold and damp could be okay – familiar cold and damp is never okay. He delays opening his eyes for a few seconds anyway, holding onto the fading hope that familiar means Atlantis, that for once in his life, cold and damp and familiar means something's gone wrong in the city, not that something went wrong on a mission and he's been captured.

It doesn't do anything to change how, when he opens his eyes, he's looking up at the same ceiling of the same cell he's been in for sixteen days and counting. He didn't really think it would, but this – capture, pain, forced into doing things he doesn't want to – is familiar enough that he's got a rhythm, figured out his ways of getting through. Right now, he's got hope and not a lot else. Hope and fantasies. It's enough to hold out for a little while longer. 

Just until they can escape.

"I know you're awake, sir." 

John turns his head at Cadman's words – gently teasing for all that the swelling on her face makes the words more like mumbling than speech. She's sitting up, her face pressed to the cold stone walls.

"Need to keep warm." John tests his limbs, and thinks about sitting up. The world is a little blurry, but he'll take it, after the amount of spinning there's been in his recent past. 

"I'm flattered, sir, but you're not my type." There's a grin in her voice that she can't make her face show now. She can't hold still enough for the cracked bone to heal , she should have gone with the others, let them take care of her. Gone with someone who could help her, instead of being stuck with John, who can't do anything for her, can't even get up and sit with her...

"Colonel!"

John opens his eyes, though he's pretty sure he did that already. "Sorry." He doesn't ask how long it was this time, or try to explain. They've done this often enough now.

"Food soon," Cadman says, before the silence can overwhelm them. "Can you bring it?"

John rolls himself, carefully, onto his side, and gets his knees under him. Pushing himself up to kneeling makes him want to close his eyes, but he knows that will just make it all feel worse. He fixes his gaze on a crack in the stones instead, and doesn't think about how he's panting for breath, sweat beading his hairline. It doesn't matter anyway; he has to do this, because Cadman's chained to the wall by her wrists, and if John doesn't do this, neither of them will eat. 

The slot in the bottom of the thick wooden door slides open moments after John makes it there, breathless and shaking.

"Watching us," Cadman says, like she always does. John's not sure if he believes her or not – these people have some kind of bastardized Ancient tech, but that's all the technology they seem to have. Although it's hard to believe their timing is just this good, every time. 

Food turns out to be lukewarm porridge and a warmish brown drink that they tell each other tastes like hot chocolate. Breakfast, then, which means John's lost some time again, because he thought it was dinner-time, that he'd passed out after testing and woken up only a couple of hours later.

He doesn't say this to Cadman. He hates the way she watches him, worry all over her face, almost as much as he hates the way she looks at ease eating her porridge, bowl balanced on her drawn up knees as she holds the spoon in both hands.

They're getting good at this, and the thought is terrifying.

"Odd day," Cadman says, like she's reading his thoughts. "They find us today, you win."

John gives her his best smirk, glad for the mouthful of porridge that covers how he has no words to go with it. He doesn't get a chance, anyway – far above them, the bell tolls. John's not sure what it signifies to the rest of the people on this world, assuming there are any beyond those who are holding him and Cadman, but he knows what it signifies for him.

Cadman taps her boot against his. "See you tonight, sir."

"Dinner on the table by five," John says, tapping back, and turns around to wait.

*

"This is a waste of time." Ronon threw down the pen, sending a dark line scrawling across the table screen. "We should be out there, looking."

"Ronon." Teyla turned her chair slightly and touched Ronon's arm. "Please."

Cam looked down at the map instead of watching the two of them. They both looked tired, the way a good chunk of Atlantis' personnel did as the search dragged into its second month, but the way the two of them had drawn into each other made something in Cam ache, missing his own team. 

There was no way Ronon and Teyla would stay with Atlantis, not if they didn't get John back alive. Maybe if McKay hadn't chosen to stay on Earth, maybe if Teyla didn't have Torren and Kanaan tying her to the Athosians, but even in the few months Cam had been in the city, he'd seen how much of a bond the three of them had.

"I know this seems pointless," Lorne said, before Cam could come up with something intelligent to say. "But this is our best way of making sense of all the data we've got, all the places we've looked for them."

He ducked his head when Cam looked over at him, reaching out to erase the line Ronon had created, and then remarking one of the flags. Ronon shook his head, pulled his arm out from under Teyla's hand, but he didn't move away, which was more than Cam had hoped for.

"Where were we?" he asked, tapping his tablet to pull up the list of possible sightings of the people who had John and Cadman. He really wished Woolsey was around to lead them through this, but he was out of Atlantis again, visiting another world that was part of the Coalition and putting his diplomatic skills to use.

Teyla tapped a planet on the edge of Atlantis' system. "There is a market here, used by many worlds to trade goods and services. Several of the regular traders report seeing men who match those who took Colonel Sheppard and Captain Cadman, though not recently."

"We sent teams there already, right?" Cam double-checked his list of sightings and searches. "Last week. Nothing."

"It may be worth sending a team again."

"It's not," Ronon said. "They haven't been there in months, they're trading somewhere else now."

Next to Cam, Lorne took a deep breath and blew it out slowly. "Teyla's right. We're running out of places to look, we might need anything we can get."

"If we have the resources," Cam said. Both Ronon and Teyla jerked forward. "Don't – We need to put people where we've got the best chance of getting something. We can't put people everywhere they might be."

"What does that mean?" Ronon asked.

Cam resisted the urge to rub at the headache brewing in the back of his neck and between his eyes. He was getting too old for this, too old and too tired. "I want to find them. Everyone wants to find them." He swallowed, wanting to tell them that he and John had been friends for more than half their lives, that John mattered to him as much as he did to Ronon and Teyla. Except it wasn't about that, and knowing John didn't change how much they needed to find both him and Cadman.

"The IOA won't let us keep looking forever," he said carefully. "We all know that. If we can't show that there's a method to the search, that's going to give them more ammunition to shut the search down."

"If they –"

"Please don't," Teyla said, before Ronon could get any further. "We understand what you are saying, Colonel."

Cam wasn't all that sure they understood it the way he'd meant them to, when they couldn't know how he'd felt, lost with the Sodan and sure that no-one was coming for him. He couldn't do that to John – couldn't do it to Cadman any more than he could John, for all that he didn't know her well at all.

"Perhaps we could take a break," Teyla suggested. "We have been in here for some time."

"Sure." Cam checked his watch, surprised to realize they'd been in there three hours. "Let's – get dinner and reconvene in an hour?"

Ronon was gone almost before Cam finished speaking, Teyla following him with only a quick glance at Lorne, who didn't move.

"You okay?" Cam asked quietly as the doors slid closed between them and the rest of the control room. 

Lorne sighed. "Tired," he said, staring fixedly at the map.

"Hey." Cam nudged his chair closer to Lorne. "You want to just be the two of us for a minute?"

Evan huffed out a breath that could have been a laugh, under better circumstances. "I will if you will."

"Cadman?"

"Yeah." Evan hesitated, glancing sideways at Cam. "Ronon."

That... made a lot of things make sense. Including how on edge Evan and Ronon were with each other, because Evan would have come to the same conclusions as Cam about what Ronon would do if they didn't find John. "How long?"

"Eighteen months." Evan leaned back and closed his eyes. "Doing okay until this."

Cam nodded, not sure what to say. Evan had been bad at relationships since long before Cam met him – by then, it had almost been a self-fulfilling prophecy, one that had played out between the two of them when they fooled around. "It's not..."

Evan made a negating hand gesture without opening his eyes. "Is it worse to be hoping we find them because I don't want to lose him, or to be hoping he won't go if that happens?"

Cam rubbed a hand over Evan's shoulder. "Are you more worried about Cadman or John?"

"I don't – both of them."

"More worried about Ronon than them?"

Evan opened his eyes to roll them, but he looked a little less worn down than he had before. "You've always got all the answers, don't you?"

Cam shook his head. If he had all the answers, he wouldn't be lying awake at night with his mind spinning around and around the thought that he didn't know how to handle being the guy who lost Atlantis' military leader. That he didn't know how to lose John, not after all this time.

"Come on. Coffee and food before we get back to this."

Evan looked at him, one eyebrow raised in query. Cam shook his head again, very firmly.

"What happened to 'I will if you will'?" Evan asked.

"You can owe me."

*

John wakes up on a cold, hard floor, a sensation that's disturbingly familiar. Except that, where there should be Cadman's voice, or the sound of her moving, there are male voices, and a burning hum under his skin.

He lies very still, trying to make sense of the words. There's a buzzing in his ears, making the words hard to understand, but the voices are familiar. They're the scientists, the ones who push machines and gadgets into John's hands, force him to hold on until he's screaming, while they make notes.

So, still in the lab. Usually, when he passes out, he wakes up back in the cell with Cadman, hours later. This is different. John shifts slightly, but doesn't come into contact with anything that gives him a clue. He was – the buzzing intensifies, makes it hard to think. Nothing they've done has made any sense, held to any kind of pattern. No reason for this to be different. 

Except that it is. He's in the lab, not back with Cadman. He's in the lab, he didn't pass out for hours, so whatever he was doing –

The buzzing spikes, taking the hum under his skin with it, and John can't fight the gasp of pain. The voices stop, then come closer. "Are you awake?"

John contemplates playing dumb.

"I think you remember what happens when you disobey."

John does: Cadman has two broken fingers on her left hand. He opens his eyes to find two scientists crouching down. Close enough that he could strike out at them, maybe even take them down. He's tried that before as well. It ended with him seizing on the floor of the lab.

"Good." Scientist One smiles, warm and pleased in a way that makes John's skin crawl. "Now, let's try that again."

John has an instant to recognize the smooth, silver oval they press into his hand, and then he's screaming again.

*

"I need to speak with you." 

Cam started, only realizing when he opened his eyes that he'd been most of the way to asleep at his desk. According to the clock, it was eight in the evening – he wasn't sure if that made it better or worse.

"Colonel Mitchell?"

Cam blinked again, finally registering that he hadn't just startled awake, that someone – Teyla – really had spoken to him. She was standing in the open door of the office, wearing her uniform jacket, the one she only wore when she was –

"Sorry," Cam said stupidly. "Your team was – I thought you weren’t due back till tomorrow."

Teyla took a couple of steps into the room, enough that the door slid closed behind her. Cam rubbed his eyes, trying to wake up for real, his brain fuzzy with sleeping at his desk – with not sleeping when he went back to his quarters at night. Teyla didn't come to his office, and she definitely didn't come to his office when she'd just gotten back from a mission.

"When we were on Parita, we spoke to several of the Council leaders. One of them was recently on a diplomatic visit, she heard of a group who had taken over a long-abandoned world, one that was rumored to once be inhabited by the Ancestors. She was able to give us the coordinates to travel to this world."

"You want to..." Cam trailed off, trying to read Teyla's expression. She wore the same pallor and dark circles they all did, a month and a half after Cadman and John had been taken, but there was something else in her eyes. Like she was waiting – like she was trying to cover something she didn't want to risk feeling. "You think she's talking about the people who took Sheppard."

Teyla's expression did something weird that Cam couldn't analyze. "It is the closest to a sign of where they could be that we have had in many days. It will likely be dark there now."

"Teyla –"

"I know what the people of your world said." Teyla looked away for a moment. "But we cannot – John has been with us since the beginning, and Captain Cadman for some time. If there is any chance that they are being held there, we must go."

"The IOA..." Cam started, but he couldn't make himself finish the sentence. Telling them once that the IOA had declared John and Cadman KIA and called off the search had been enough. This wasn't even close to something they could call a sighting or reliable intelligence, but even Woolsey had promised that they'd follow up anything that could be something. It didn't matter what the IOA said – no-one in Atlantis would really believe John was dead until they brought back his body.

"I came to you, rather than Mr Woolsey, because I believe that, like myself and Ronon, you would not let the rules prevent you from rescuing John if there is any hope at all. But I think you should know that neither one of us would hesitate to leave the city if that was the only way to bring him and Captain Cadman back."

"It's not going to come to that," Cam said firmly. "It's – let me talk to Woolsey, all right? Before the two of you do something drastic."

Teyla looked at him without saying anything.

"I promise." Cam looked down at the desk, a report that he couldn't identify at all. "I've known John a long time. I promise."

Teyla's expression softened, just a little. "I trust you," she said softly.

*

"I think you should try to get out of here," Cadman says, so low that John can hardly hear her. He's lucky, for once, got thrown into the cell with enough force to roll into Cadman's space and push himself mostly upright against the wall at her side.

"Not without you," John says, same as every other time they've had this conversation.

"You're sick."

John looks at Cadman's broken bones and abraded wrists and doesn't say anything. She lifts the good side of her mouth in a small smile. "I'm chained to the wall. You're not. If either of us is getting out to bring help, it's not me."

John thinks about the two guards who come for him every day and bind his hands behind his back; about the devices they shove into his hands or push him against, and how the world spins for hours after, if he even manages to stay awake for the journey back down to their cell. He knows the routes to the labs, and he has a decent sense of which way out would be. He even has a few ideas for how to disarm the guards.

He's not sure he could actually make it to the surface, but that's not why he shakes his head.

It's because the testing hurts, makes him feel like his brain's leaking from his ears, makes him wonder if he'll ever be able to sit up without feeling so dizzy he throws up, but that's a side effect. The testing is testing for the sake of science – warped, but intellectual – and not meant to make John hurt.

Cadman's broken fingers from the one time John said no – that was meant to hurt her. He may not know exactly what they'd do if John did manage to get away, but he knows that it would hurt. More than hurt, and maybe he'd bring a team back to find her dead.

No matter what, he's not leaving Cadman behind to be tortured or killed for him escaping. He's never left anyone on purpose, and he doesn’t plan to start now.

"Let me look at your cuffs," he says instead. "Maybe I can grab something in the lab."

He feels Cadman giving him the same unimpressed stare he gave her a few minutes ago, and ignores it in favor of trying to make sense of the locking mechanism on the cuffs. It's a waste of time and they both know it – the lock is like nothing either of them have ever seen, and even if it was, there's a whole lot of nothing in the labs that could help. John knows. He's looked.

"You'll die before we can escape together," Cadman says, softly.

"Then I'll die."

"And then they'll kill me," Cadman adds, her voice hard, all superior-subordinate relationships erased by days and weeks of being alone and trapped. "They're only keeping me alive because of you."

"I'm not going without you." John risks looking up and meeting her eyes. He's not sure what he reads there, but it's enough that he can say, "Lorne would kill me for coming back without you."

Cadman closes her eyes for a long moment, shaking her head. "He wouldn't be the only one, sir."

Of this, John is far more aware than he really wants to be – or needs to be, anyway. He likes that his people trust him, or maybe just that they know him well enough to know that he wouldn't turn them in for something that he's done. "I thought we agreed on keeping our private lives private, Captain."

"You just said that because you don't want me to know that you have no private life."

It's sadly true. John's not great at relationships, and even less so in Atlantis, where everyone's on top of each other and privacy is more about turning a blind eye than anything else.

"Anyway, you're the one who said that. I agreed to nothing."

That's undoubtedly just as true, because Cadman is nothing if not sneaky and crafty, especially when it comes to making promises she has no intention of keeping. "I'm trying to live in blissful ignorance."

"What happened to _knowledge is power_?"

" _What you don't know can't hurt you._ "

" _With great knowledge comes great responsibility._ "

John cocks an eyebrow at that one, and Cadman twitches her shoulder in a shrug. "Plus," John says, "I'm pretty sure it's _power_ not _knowledge._ "

"Comics geek. I always suspected."

John closes his eyes very pointedly, no longer even bothered by the near constant low light. "Go to sleep, Captain."

"Sir," she says, all mocking, but it doesn't take long for her breathing to slow and even out.

John keeps his eyes closed – easier to ignore the slowly encroaching dizziness that way – but it takes him a long time to sleep, his mind whirling with what-if's that he can't do anything about.

*

They stepped through the gate into darkness that was absolute as soon as the wormhole collapsed back – Cam, Teyla, Ronon, Lorne and Keller. They'd gated to the Athosian settlement first, in line with a mission report that said they were checking on the Athosians, the most plausible excuse Cam had been able to offer with two hours to gear up for a mission that made his hands shake every time he thought about it.

"I've got a cluster of life signs three klicks in that direction," Lorne said softly. "Nothing else popping up between here and there."

Keller frowned, the expression just visible in the beam of the small flashlight she was carrying. "Shouldn't they have guards?"

"Be grateful they don't," Ronon told her, already turned in the direction Lorne had indicated, blaster in his hand. "Cocky."

Cam ducked his head, checking his weapon so there was no risk of anyone reading his thoughts on his face, his fear that the lack of guards meant something else. "Let's move, before someone comes to check on the gate activation."

It was the first mission Cam had been on since coming to Pegasus – the first that was more than a diplomatic envoy, anyway, or a meet-and-greet – but it didn't feel anything like the missions he'd been on with SG-1. Sneaking through the dead of night, guided by Lorne's life-signs detector and the knowledge from Teyla's contact, the mission fit wholly into the realm of send-in-the-marines. 

Cam really, really wished that the science team had come up with a way to mark their people's life-signs, so that he'd know what they were walking into. At least if Cadman and John were dead, it would be over, and everyone could start to move forward. 

That thought was exactly as reassuring as anyone could expect.

"Stop." Teyla's voice barely carried, even in the near silence of the planet. Which was weird, once Cam took a moment to think about it – the planet was the usual rolling hills and woods, but completely lacking any kind of animal noises, not so much as a bird moving the leaves as their passage disturbed it. "There."

Built into the side of the low rise in front of them, hardly visible in the pale moonlight, was a round door, just large enough to pass through in single file.

"It's a hobbit hole," Keller said, saving Cam from having to be the one who said it. Then, "Sorry."

Lorne laughed a little, and even Ronon cracked a momentary smile before sobering up again. "Even if they don't have anyone guarding the place, that's a bad spot for sneaking in."

"You want to look for another entrance?" Lorne looked down at the detector as he asked, then turned it so the rest of them could see. "I'm not picking up anything close by. They might have traps set, but if not, this is our best bet."

"It seems too simple," Teyla said. "They must know that we would be searching for our people, would they not have better security systems in place?"

"Maybe they think we've given up," Cam said, before Ronon could offer the same suggestion. He felt Ronon looking at him anyway. "We're lucky this entrance was so easy to spot. In the dark, we could look for hours and not find another, if there even is one."

"I don't like it," Ronon said. He shifted, looking at Lorne, then Teyla. Even in the dim light, his grin was dangerous. "I say we do it anyway."

Lorne groaned, but he was already nodding. "Colonel, I think you should stay here with Dr Keller. Someone to come rescue us if we are walking into a trap."

Keller opened her mouth, then closed it, only rolling her eyes enough for a token protest. "By which he means, I need a babysitter so I don't fall down a well or get eaten by bears."

"It would not be the first time," Teyla said slyly.

"It didn't eat me, it just wanted to be friends." Keller shared a grin with Teyla, then sobered up. "Be careful."

Lorne glanced at Cam, catching his eye and raising an eyebrow. Cam nodded back – left behind was the last place he wanted to be, but the three of them were at least somewhat used to working together, while he'd just be in the way. It burned, but that didn't mean it wasn't true. "We'll keep radio contact as long as we can," Lorne promised. "If we lose it, and we're not back within two hours, send reinforcements."

"Yes, sir." Cam smiled to take the sting out of the words, and pretended he didn't see Lorne flush in the darkness.

The three of them checked their weapons and their comms, tested the door, offered reassuring nods to Keller and Cam, and then they were gone, the door closing as quietly as it had opened, leaving Cam and Keller with two flashlights and a potentially long wait.

*

"Did you hear that?" 

John twitches a finger against Cadman's leg to prompt her to keep talking. He can't get his eyes open, and last time he tried to speak, he threw up, only just managing to do it on the floor and not his clothes. He counts himself lucky they dropped him right by Cadman, close enough that she can talk quietly and not make the lights flashing behind his eyelids any worse.

"I think I can – either I'm starting to hallucinate, or that was P-90 fire."

John tries to gather up his foggy thoughts, though he feels like he's using a large-hole net to do so, too much slipping away. He was armed when he was taken, which means their captors could have his weapons, but doesn't explain why Cadman would be hearing anyone fire them. Not after so long – if they were going to try out the weaponry, they'd have done it in the first few days. 

"Colonel?" Cadman nudges John's head gently by means of tensing her thigh. "I really need you to stay awake. If that's a rescue party, we don't want them to find you lying down on the job."

She makes a sharp noise as she finishes speaking – even mumbling, her cheekbone makes speaking painful. John's learned so well to understand the half-vocalized words that he can't actually remember what Cadman's normal voice sounds like. 

He presses his hand against her leg and listens, hard as he can past the buzzing in his ears and the way he thinks he can hear his heartbeat. There's nothing – nothing – and then, a burst of gunfire. And, unless John's mistaken, the whir of Ronon's blaster.

"Getting closer," Cadman says. Her whole body's tense, the excitement clear in her voice. There's another burst of gunfire – not just getting closer, but getting closer *fast* - a loud crash, someone shouting. "This is gonna hurt," Cadman mutters. Before John can say anything, she takes a breath and yells, "We're down here, we're here, Atlantis, we're here."

She trails off into panting, pained breaths. John can't just – he breathes, ignores the smell of vomit and unwashed bodies, and shouts, "Ronon! Teyla! Down here!"

Pain flares so fast and hard that all he can do for the next few breaths is scream, wordless and agonizing, squeezing his eyes closed like that will help. The only thing that makes him able to stop is a voice he can hardly hear over his own, familiar and safe, shouting back, "John, we're here. Hold on."

Teyla. That's Teyla. He hears Cadman let out a soft, shaken breath, too close to a sob for her, but her voice is totally steady when she says, "Even day. I win."

John nods. The world's tipping sideways, like he might slip off, and he clings onto the only stable thing left in it – that's Teyla's voice, Teyla's voice and Ronon's gun, and that means they're safe, that means they're being rescued, their people are here, and it's over, it's finally over.

They're going home.

*

"Colonel Mitchell!"

It wasn't until Woolsey called his name, shocked and pleased, that Cam registered they were back in Atlantis – someone had dialed the gate, someone had sent authorization, the wormhole had engaged and they'd stepped back into the city. Even then, it barely made a dent in his focus. 

Keller said, sharp and in control, "Get him down, he's going under again." Between them, he and Ronon only just got John on the control room floor before his whole body jerked, the seizure rolling over him. 

"Get a med team down here, now!" Keller dropped to her knees, pushing Ronon back as she did so, her fingers going straight to the injection port she'd made them stop for her to put into John's arm the second time he started seizing on the way back. "That's it, Colonel. We're home now, we're safe."

Someone pushed at Cam's arm. "Sir, Colonel, out of the way, please, we need to get at him."

Cam stumbled back a handful of steps before he even registered that the person speaking to him was an Atlantis medic, followed by two more with stretchers. 

It hit him, sudden and hard. They were back in Atlantis, they had Cadman and John back.

He sat down, a little more abruptly than he'd meant to. What seemed like half the population of Atlantis was ringing the edge of the gate room or standing on the balconies, all wanting to find out what had happened, if the rumors were true.

In the middle of it all, Ronon and Teyla stood pressed close together, not taking their eyes off John as Keller's drugs finally worked and the seizure stopped. Close by, Lorne and a nurse Cam didn't recognize were helping Cadman onto a gurney, ignoring her trying to push them aside so she could see what was happening to John.

Both he and Cadman looked like they'd been held prisoner for weeks, dirty, exhausted, Cadman's hair a tangled mess and John's beard growing in thickly, more gray than brown. For all that he was the one seizing, John actually looked in better shape medically, mostly bruises and cuts against Cadman's swollen face, deeply abraded wrists, and misshapen fingers. 

"Straight to medical with her," Keller said, waving over the other stretcher. "Get him on a gurney –"

"Colonel Mitchell." Woolsey's voice this time was quieter, but much closer. Incongruously, he sat down next to Cam on the bottom stair leading up to the control balcony, frowning a little as he watched Keller's team wheel their two patients away, Ronon, Teyla and Lorne at their heels. "Congratulations."

Cam shook his head, staring down at his hands, clenched in his lap. He wasn't actually sure he could lift his head again. "I didn't do anything."

"I'll say it to the others as well, don't worry." Woolsey patted Cam's shoulder, just once. "I know you'd like to be down in the infirmary with the others, but I'd like to get a brief report from you first. So that I can start fabricating my story for the IOA."

The obvious smile in his voice was enough to get Cam on his feet, and the promise of coffee and one of Woolsey's soft chairs took him up into the control room. The murmurs were audible, if incomprehensible, as he passed the unusually large night staff, and he knew the story of John and Cadman's return would be all over the city by sunrise. Not that he'd want it any different; this was news that the city's residents had waited for a long time.

"Obviously Teyla's information was solid," Woolsey said, once Cam had a strong cup of coffee in his hands. "And the rescue was successful. Did Dr Keller offer any prognosis for Captain Cadman and Colonel Sheppard?"

Very deliberately, Cam turned off the part of him that could see John, seizing on the grass and looking like he might never stop. This was procedure, enough so to lose himself in it, even if only for a while.

*

"Colonel Sheppard? Open your eyes if you can hear me, Colonel."

The voice was – not Cadman. John knew he was telegraphing his status, tensing in surprise, but he couldn't stop himself. There weren't any women at the facility, just her, so if he wasn't waking up to her voice –

"Try to relax, John. You're safe now, you're back in Atlantis. Teyla and Ronon are right outside, they want to see you." A pause. "Do you think you can open your eyes for me first?"

Dr Keller. No-one else in medical called him by his first name. Hardly anyone on Atlantis did, even after all this time. John took a careful breath, a little surprised when it didn't make lights start flashing, or noises start ringing in his ears. He took another, but that was as safe as the first. He wasn't sure about moving, not yet – nothing exactly hurt, but the familiar feeling of pain held at bay by drugs was settling into his body.

Opening his eyes seemed manageable though, and it would make Keller happy. Might even let him get some of the blanks filled in, after the shouting and the gunfire and Teyla's voice.

He needed a couple of attempts, and even then, it took Keller saying, "That's it, just a little more," for him to force his eyes all the way open, blinking everything into focus. He was in medical, on his back, Keller standing in his line of sight, but not too close, smiling at him. 

He smiled back, because why the hell not, he was in Atlantis, which was much better than he'd have expected a couple of days ago. Even if she told him he was going to keel over in the next day or so, this was an improvement on his last few weeks.

"Are you back with us?"

"Cadman?" John asked. His throat hurt, and his brain still felt like it was wrapped in cotton, but he remembered the important stuff. "She's okay?"

Keller's smile widened. "Definitely back with us. She's doing all right – came out of surgery an hour ago, and Dr Kaur's optimistic about her long-term recovery."

"Can I see her?"

"Soon." Keller glanced at a monitor, and jotted something in John's chart. "I'm going to let Ronon and Teyla in, before they storm my infirmary to see you, but only for a few minutes while I check in on Laura. When I come back, we'll talk about your medical status. Nothing major, but you're going to be with me for a while."

"Missed me that much?"

"Guess so, yeah."

Teyla and Ronon, when they walked in, had Torren with them. He reached out one hand for John almost immediately, and Ronon came forward to raise the bed, half-hugging John in the process. For once, John managed not to pull away from it, instead leaning into Ronon's warmth, too aware that he'd expected never to feel it again.

"You look well." Teyla settled on the edge of the bed and passed Torren over. He wriggled, curling himself into John's body and babbling. John caught, 'mama,' but the rest was nonsense, even if John was half-certain he could hear the starts of more words. 

"He's grown," John said, wrapping his arms loosely around Torren's solid body.

"He does that." Ronon nudged John's legs enough to sit down. "You okay?"

John shrugged, pleased when it didn't spark anything into serious pain. Good enough for now. "You guys came to get us?"

"Of course." Teyla leaned in, telegraphing it, to rest her forehead against John's, holding it until he sighed a little, as relieved as he'd been with Ronon close. It was still weird, the team without Rodney, but the three of them together still felt better, safer. Like everything was okay now, even in a hospital bed, even waiting to see Cadman and be sure she was as okay as Keller had promised.

"We will always come for you, John, you know that."

"Yeah." John drew back slightly, just enough to put a bit of distance between the two of them. Teyla's hand drifted down to Torren's back, rubbing gently. "So, what did I miss here?"

"Major Lorne, I think, was sure that Ronon would run away to find you." Teyla smiled as she said it, sly and warm enough that John didn't bother mentioning that they really shouldn't be talking about Lorne's relationship with Ronon. Not that he hadn't mostly given up on trying that years ago anyway.

"I would've come back." Ronon shrugged. "Once I found you and Laura."

"Ronon," John said quietly, not sure what to say next. Ronon had said that Atlantis was his home, had seemed settled and happy in the year since Cadman came back to Atlantis and drew him into her friendship group. 

He didn't dare look at Teyla, sure that her expression would say the same thing. Just for a moment, he let himself wonder how many other people on Atlantis would have done the same, for him or for Cadman.

"You shouldn't..." john shook his head. There just wasn't a way that he could put all of that into words. Not in the middle of the infirmary, where anyone could overhear. He cuddled Torren closer instead, watching Torren's eye lashes flutter. It really was good to be home.

*

Cam wouldn't have said he was a loner on Atlantis, or friendless – enough SGC people came out to Atlantis that he knew a good number of faces, was even moderately friendly with some of them – but it wasn't uncommon for him to end up eating alone. It had definitely gotten more frequent after John was taken, though only, if he was being honest, in small part because John wasn't there. 

Coming out to Atlantis should have made it easier to strengthen the easy friendship they'd had for years. Cam wasn't sure if it was his position, one step above John in the Atlantis chain of command, or just the novelty of geographic closeness, but things had been off-kilter almost since day one, and with John finally back, Cam had the mental space to go right back to worrying about it again.

"Penny for'em."

Cam had noticed Evan walking into the commissary, but had maybe drifted away a little, given that Evan's abrupt presence on the other side of the table startled him. He dragged up a smile."Probably not worth that much."

Evan sat down without asking, which confirmed that this was more of a friends than a colleagues situation. "I'll pay up anyway. Pretty sure there's a rule about brooding the day after the daring rescue of our military commander and my best friend."

"I'm not – I'm just thinking."

"Remember when you said I could owe you a bit of friendly support and advice?" Evan asked. He waited for Cam's nod. "I'm paying up."

"I don't think favors are supposed to work like that."

"We weren't _supposed_ to go rushing off to rescue our people on pretty flimsy intelligence, but that worked out." Evan grinned, but let it slip off his face when Cam didn't. "You really can tell me, you know."

"Yeah." Cam spun his half-empty coffee cup between his palms. "I'm not sure there's anything to tell."

"Are you and Sheppard –" Evan glanced down and away, then back, his cheeks slightly flushed. "Sorry, I'm not sure I can – are you like me and you were?"

Cam shrugged. It wasn't like he'd never thought about it – John had always been ridiculously good looking, in his opinion, and smart with anything that flew in a way that Cam could listen to all day. Plus, they'd had a couple of only semi-oblique conversations that had made it clear John wouldn't be opposed on the grounds of Cam's gender. Except that it had been years, and there'd been Nancy, then Holland, and somehow Cam had never managed to pluck up his courage in the gaps in between.

So maybe he hadn't entirely been thinking friendship when he'd been thinking about the benefits of being physically close to John again. 

"Oh," Evan said softly. 

Cam kept his head down. "He wouldn't have been there if it wasn't for me."

"Clearly you've never seen Colonel Sheppard when his people are in trouble. He got captured rescuing me and my team, before we'd even been out here six months, and stabbed rescuing Keller from a tentacle ship, and those aren't even the worst. He'd have been there."

Cam nodded, instead of pointing out that, if he hadn’t pushed for them to try diplomacy, John would have been there geared up for a fight and a rescue. Sure, he'd gone there expecting it, but he'd gone under cover of diplomacy, they all had. Cam had been the one to push for that, and Woolsey had listened to him. He couldn't shake the feeling that if he'd just kept his mouth shut, this would have all been different.

"I know," he said anyway, because Lorne was practically vibrating with how happy he was to have Cadman back safely, to no longer have to worry about Ronon, and their relationship. Cam wasn't going to bring him down with his own doubts and obsessions. 

"It's gonna be okay."

Cam nodded again, swallowing lukewarm coffee along with the urge to point out how easy it was for Evan to say that, when he and John had rescued each other enough times to lose count. All Cam had done was send John into danger, then stand around while the others rescued him. He didn't think that was really the same at all.

*

John woke up to the low hum of voices and a moment of complete disorientation between the warm-soft-safe of the bed he was in and the cold-dark-trapped that came with what he was fairly certain was Cadman's voice. He kept his eyes closed, waiting out the time things took to resettle around him, resolve into the infirmary bed and Cadman talking quietly to another woman, a voice that wasn't quite familiar enough for him to put a name to.

That was good. If she was talking, the damage to her face couldn't be as severe as it had seemed in the cell, and if she had visitors, she must have been awake a little while. Long enough that she was probably okay.

"You can't fool me, Colonel." With her voice raised to get his attention, John could still hear some slurring and mumbling in Cadman's words, but nowhere near as bad as it had been. "I know you're awake."

John obligingly opened his eyes, turning his head in the direction of Cadman's voice. He took a moment for, oh yeah, Keller was dialing back the pain relief already, and then he registered that Cadman had, in fact, been talking to Captain Vega and Dr Brown, who, if John wasn't mistaken, had her hand on Cadman's, half-hidden by the blankets and the angle of Cadman's body.

"Good to see you, Captain," John said lightly, focusing on her face. She had a line of dark stitches just under her hair, where Kaur must have cut for the surgery to fix the bone. Her wrists were wrapped in stark white bandages, her broken fingers strapped in place.

In amongst all that, she was smiling, free from chains and fear. John couldn't help returning her smile.

"You too, sir. Especially awake – you snore."

"You've had plenty of time to get used to it."

Vega laughed, like John had expected – after John and Carson had tagged along on her team's mission with the mist creatures, she and John had both managed to relax enough to realize they had pretty similar senses of humor – but Dr Brown just frowned, her hand tightening on Cadman's.

Cadman turned slightly, enough to meet Dr Brown's gaze, and John dropped his own, giving them the moment of privacy they clearly needed. Which, for the record, was one of many reasons that John preferred not to know what his subordinates got up to.

Keller chose then to wander out of her office and start fiddling with the one monitor still attached to John. He would have chalked it up to her doctor-sense, except for the glance she shot at Vega, and the warm smile she got in return. It wasn't like John hadn't known about that relationship for a while, but he somehow, between the two of them, and Cadman and Dr Brown, Atlantis seemed overly full of couples.

"Once this IV has run through," Keller said, before John could get too deep into his own thoughts, "I can release you into the city for a couple of hours. Using a wheelchair only," she added as John perked up. "But I want you back here in time for the evening meal, and at least overnight."

John nodded, giving in with grace since Keller understood how he needed to check on his city, his people, after so long away. "Promise I'll be good, Doc."

"That's what worries me," Keller said. She jotted something on his chart and nodded. "I'll be back in an hour." 

When she disappeared, Vega went with her, half-pulling Dr Brown after her, which meant Cadman wanted – well, she wasn't the type to go for heart-to-hearts, but to talk, at least.

"Kind of wasn't expecting this," Cadman said, when they were as alone as it was possible to get in the infirmary, even tucked into the corner. 

John really couldn't argue with that. "Keller says you should make a full recovery."

Cadman rolled her eyes in disgust. "I'm going to be off-duty for weeks."

"Thought you'd like a chance to sit around doing nothing."

"I just sat around doing nothing for seven weeks two days, I've had enough of it."

"Some people are never happy," John told her, watching her closely. She really seemed to mean the joking, the easy attitude to weeks of imprisonment that they'd both thought would end with them dead. John really wished he had whatever she did – some days, it was like every capture, every bad mission, every death on his watch, all caught up with him at once, like a stone in his gut that could take weeks to shake. "You doing okay?"

"Good enough for now." Cadman lifted her injured hand slightly. "You?"

"Good enough for now," John echoed.

Cadman's smile faded, then dropped away entirely. "No more seizures?"

"Hopefully not." John'd had one since waking up on Atlantis, but Keller seemed pretty sure they were a side effect of the stuff he'd been messing with in the lab, something that would fade away given time.

"Good. Because that was – I'm pretty sure Colonel Mitchell thought you were going to die on us."

"Mitchell?" John hadn't thought about Cam, but the moment Cadman said his name, it was weird that Cam hadn't been to see him. Or hadn't stuck around to speak to him – John was well-versed in the art of watching friends sleep in infirmary beds, same as every other military officer he knew. 

"After they got us out, when you started seizing." Cadman frowned. "You don't remember?"

John shook his head uncertainly. He remembered gunfire and Teyla's voice shouting, then, so hazy he thought he might have dreamed it, hands pulling him up, Cadman saying, "- shoot them off." After that, everything was a blur of movement, none of it making any sense, and then waking up in the infirmary.

"He came with the rescue team – him, Teyla, Ronon, Evan and Jennifer. She said he insisted."

That sounded like Cam – after so long, the IOA would have ordered Atlantis to stop looking, and Cam, like John, wouldn't let his people take a risk that he didn't take as well.

John remembered, there and then gone, arguing with Cam over diplomacy versus force before the original mission to retrieve Lorne's team. 

He was fairly sure he knew why Cam hadn't yet appeared in the infirmary.

*

"So you are still in the city." 

Cam wouldn't have said that he was avoiding John, or hoping for another day or two's grace before Keller released him from the hospital. Given the urge he had to duck under the desk when John wheeled himself into the open doorway, he probably would have been lying to himself.

John still looked like someone who'd been locked away in the dark for over a month and forced to interact with experimental technology – Teldy's team had taken a group of scientists and Ancient tech experts back to take a closer look that morning – but even obviously still feeling the after-effects, he looked so good.

"Where would I go?" Cam looked back at his laptop, hyper-aware for how closely he wanted to look at John.

Who wheeled himself up to the edge of the desk, stopping too neatly to be anything but practiced at doing so. His expression was mostly casual, but they'd known each other for years, more than long enough for Cam to pick up the tension in his shoulders, even as he shrugged. "Thought you'd have been to visit. Unless you're too busy with Woolsey's paperwork."

Cam couldn't help the flinch at John's words, even knowing he didn't mean anything by it, wasn't making a crack about Cam's decision."You'd be surprised how much paperwork a rescue mission creates," he said, sounding far too stiff.

"Not any time soon."

John was watching Cam, too focused for comfort. Too much like he was step-stepping towards the right conclusion. It wasn't difficult to believe – after five years as military commander of Atlantis, John had lost people, sent people out to be lost. It wasn't like Cam wouldn't make sense to him.

Except that this was John, who hated to talk about things, who'd nearly been lost because of Cam's decision.

"Look," John started, obviously prepared to have the conversation anyway, or at least make an attempt. "You guys came and got us. We're both alive. That's what matters."

It should have been. It could have been, if Cam couldn’t remember how the teams had looked when they came back into the city with Lorne's team, minus Cadman and John. If he didn't feel sick at the memory of the last few weeks, how he'd started to think they'd never find Cadman and John, or that they'd find dead bodies.

"I should have listened to you," he said, not really thinking about it. "Right at the start, when you didn't want to try diplomacy."

John shifted, obviously uncomfortable. "You did what you thought was best."

But Cam hadn't done it. Cam had sat in his office in Atlantis, worried about Lorne's team, but not too worried. Certain that John's team could bring them safely home, and that the people who'd taken the team could be talked into letting them go, if they just got to see John, like they'd wanted. Cam had believed that they were one of the worlds unhappy with Atlantis, just wanting to air their grievances and going a little overboard in getting there. 

"I thought you weren't coming back," Cam said, not looking at John. He still felt John's moment of realization, that Cam meant John, not John and Cadman. "I thought I'd sent you to be – that you were dead and I sent you there."

Cam had to stop talking then, afraid that the wave of fear and grief that he'd pushed away all through the last month and a half would sweep up and pull him under. He wasn't ready for that – for how strong it felt.

"I am back," John said quietly. "You're Woolsey's deputy, it's your job to –"

"Not to send you," Cam said. "I should have... I made a mistake. I should have listened to all of you, and I made a mistake, and you could have been killed. You were tortured."

John leaned forward, far enough that Cam could see how he was frowning, how upset he looked. "This is my job. That was my job – they wanted me for Lorne's team. They shouldn't have been able to grab Cadman as well but she's tough. Cam – this is what we do. You and me and everyone else here, this is what we do."

Cam shook his head. "This isn't like I expected."

John laughed, wry amusement and relief. "I remember that feeling." He took a deep breath. "You didn't do anything wrong."

"Does it get easier?" Cam asked quietly.

John sighed. "I don't know. Not really."

"I missed you," Cam said, knowing it wasn't an answer. Knowing he was still giving away too much, showing more than John maybe wanted to see after all these years, especially right now.

John reached over and bumped their hands together. When Cam looked up, John was studiously looking away, something half-unreadable on his face. Maybe Cam was just hoping for too much, or trying to see something, but he thought, maybe, that John might want to know a little more than Cam had thought. 

"Thanks," Cam said, letting his hand stay where it was, John's skin warm against his, a physical reminder that John was here and safe and okay, and that they had the time to figure out their friendship with them both in the same place. That they could make it okay and that, if they were really lucky, they could maybe even make it better.


End file.
